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The only problem is that you lack knowledge of human history, of consciousness, and of life, thus you conclusion is invalid.

The interesting question is not "_When_ will remnants of Life be discovered on Mars", but "In _what_ dimensions will Life be found on it?" _Everything_ is alive, because everything is conscious. Mars one of the catalysts that helps us to "wake up."

> nothing, NADA, suggests life is out there.

I beg to differ. NASA's own footage shows otherwise. Evidence: The Case for NASA UFOs

This picture is safe for work. You just have to have a dirty mind to appreciate it.

Do people actually make imitation Grateful Dead live tapes? Some bar band (or Phish?!?) and claim it's the Dead?

A lot of files on P2P networks are mislabeled. You'll see a file going around titled "Cocteau Twins - The Thinner the Air (Massive Attack remix)" which Massive Attack didn't actually have anything to do with (probably just some teenager adding beats onto the song with his home computer).

In the print publishing world, however, deceptive labeling is common. Think about the $2 "Webster's Dictionaries" you can get at a supermarket. They are paperbacks often printed on newsprint and haven't been updated in decades. Not an appealing product, but the presence of the freely usable term "Webster's" gives them a shine of reputability. However, the real standard American English abridged dictionary is something like Meriam-Webster's Collegiate and people might want to spend a little more if they know they are getting the right thing.

"This is an issue I've been pondering for a very long time, from a philosophy/aesthetics point of view. the real problem here is that we lack a sufficient definition of art in the first place, people have been asking what art is since Socrates, and we STILL don't have a bloody clue. It belongs in that class of "I know it when I see it" ideas, in that what we call art is largely defined by culture, time, and arbitrary academics."

debatable.

Parents are the single greatest influence on their children, not all this outside stuff.

Judith Rich Harris has proven that parents account for 50% of their children's personality and that all of that effect is genetic. The remainder of the children's personality is developed from factors outside the home. Problem is, no one knows what those outside factors are.

In The Nurture Assumption and No Two AlikeHarris provides the evidence supporting the above, demolishes competing theories and hypothesizes that the child's peer group is the most substantial source of non-genetic behavior.

Pretty astonishing really. According to Harris, most studies and research about techniques of good parenting are, in the end, total utter garbage.

Harris is talking about children in normal homes, i.e., no psychotic fathers or mothers, no traumatic beatings or abuse, of course. But, short of that, it doesn't make much difference how you treat your kids as long as you're a normal loving parent: they'll grow up with personalities determined by their peer group, not by you.

Parents are the single greatest influence on their children, not all this outside stuff.

Judith Rich Harris has proven that parents account for 50% of their children's personality and that all of that effect is genetic. The remainder of the children's personality is developed from factors outside the home. Problem is, no one knows what those outside factors are.

In The Nurture Assumption and No Two AlikeHarris provides the evidence supporting the above, demolishes competing theories and hypothesizes that the child's peer group is the most substantial source of non-genetic behavior.

Pretty astonishing really. According to Harris, most studies and research about techniques of good parenting are, in the end, total utter garbage.

Harris is talking about children in normal homes, i.e., no psychotic fathers or mothers, no traumatic beatings or abuse, of course. But, short of that, it doesn't make much difference how you treat your kids as long as you're a normal loving parent: they'll grow up with personalities determined by their peer group, not by you.

another possibility:

http://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Effect-Thomas-Wren/dp/0671655795/

Are you on drugs? Regulated monopolies are idiotic because:

1) Any potential of free market competition gets regulated away and companies now become accountable only to government bureaucrats, not their customers.
2) The barriers for entry (and competition) increase because now instead of lobbying Congress to leave them alone, the telcos lobby the FCC to keep them protected and put in artificial barriers for new entrants into the market.
3) Instead of decision-making about infrastructure being made by the owners of the infrastructure, some political sycophant put in charge of the FCC or whatever board is chartered to regulate the internet now has the ultimate say.

This sort of regulatory nonsense nearly killed the railroads, did kill private passenger rail service, kept freight shipping rates inflated until deregulation began in the late 70's and 80's, kept telephone users bound to the Bell System and unable to legally plug a fax machine into the wall, and forced oh-so-many other inefficiencies on the American economy that we're still reeling from it. And why did all of these things happen? Some self-appointed spokesman for the poor downtrodden and abused masses, tired of being "exploited" by (railroads|truck lines|airlines|telcos|pharmaceutical companies) created an elaborate regulatory structure that did nothing but waste tax dollars on people pushing papers around on their desks and hindered growth by placing artificial barriers on entry into the market, all in the name of some statist aesthetic held-over from the days of Karl Marks.

Sources: ($50 well-spent)

Friedman, Milton. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
(http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/dp/0156334607/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039554&sr=8-1)

Woods, Thomas, 33 Questions ABout American History You're Not Supposed to Ask
http://www.amazon.com/Questions-About-American-History-Supposed/dp/0307346684/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039599&sr=1-1

Stossel, John. Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity
http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Lies-Downright-Stupidity-Everything/dp/B000YFH3PQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039658&sr=1-1

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0452011876/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039712&sr=1-1

And no, I am NOT a Ron Paul whackjob.

Are you on drugs? Regulated monopolies are idiotic because:

1) Any potential of free market competition gets regulated away and companies now become accountable only to government bureaucrats, not their customers.
2) The barriers for entry (and competition) increase because now instead of lobbying Congress to leave them alone, the telcos lobby the FCC to keep them protected and put in artificial barriers for new entrants into the market.
3) Instead of decision-making about infrastructure being made by the owners of the infrastructure, some political sycophant put in charge of the FCC or whatever board is chartered to regulate the internet now has the ultimate say.

This sort of regulatory nonsense nearly killed the railroads, did kill private passenger rail service, kept freight shipping rates inflated until deregulation began in the late 70's and 80's, kept telephone users bound to the Bell System and unable to legally plug a fax machine into the wall, and forced oh-so-many other inefficiencies on the American economy that we're still reeling from it. And why did all of these things happen? Some self-appointed spokesman for the poor downtrodden and abused masses, tired of being "exploited" by (railroads|truck lines|airlines|telcos|pharmaceutical companies) created an elaborate regulatory structure that did nothing but waste tax dollars on people pushing papers around on their desks and hindered growth by placing artificial barriers on entry into the market, all in the name of some statist aesthetic held-over from the days of Karl Marks.

Sources: ($50 well-spent)

Friedman, Milton. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
(http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/dp/0156334607/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039554&sr=8-1)

Woods, Thomas, 33 Questions ABout American History You're Not Supposed to Ask
http://www.amazon.com/Questions-About-American-History-Supposed/dp/0307346684/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039599&sr=1-1

Stossel, John. Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity
http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Lies-Downright-Stupidity-Everything/dp/B000YFH3PQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039658&sr=1-1

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0452011876/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039712&sr=1-1

And no, I am NOT a Ron Paul whackjob.

Are you on drugs? Regulated monopolies are idiotic because:

1) Any potential of free market competition gets regulated away and companies now become accountable only to government bureaucrats, not their customers.
2) The barriers for entry (and competition) increase because now instead of lobbying Congress to leave them alone, the telcos lobby the FCC to keep them protected and put in artificial barriers for new entrants into the market.
3) Instead of decision-making about infrastructure being made by the owners of the infrastructure, some political sycophant put in charge of the FCC or whatever board is chartered to regulate the internet now has the ultimate say.

This sort of regulatory nonsense nearly killed the railroads, did kill private passenger rail service, kept freight shipping rates inflated until deregulation began in the late 70's and 80's, kept telephone users bound to the Bell System and unable to legally plug a fax machine into the wall, and forced oh-so-many other inefficiencies on the American economy that we're still reeling from it. And why did all of these things happen? Some self-appointed spokesman for the poor downtrodden and abused masses, tired of being "exploited" by (railroads|truck lines|airlines|telcos|pharmaceutical companies) created an elaborate regulatory structure that did nothing but waste tax dollars on people pushing papers around on their desks and hindered growth by placing artificial barriers on entry into the market, all in the name of some statist aesthetic held-over from the days of Karl Marks.

Sources: ($50 well-spent)

Friedman, Milton. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
(http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/dp/0156334607/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039554&sr=8-1)

Woods, Thomas, 33 Questions ABout American History You're Not Supposed to Ask
http://www.amazon.com/Questions-About-American-History-Supposed/dp/0307346684/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039599&sr=1-1

Stossel, John. Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity
http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Lies-Downright-Stupidity-Everything/dp/B000YFH3PQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039658&sr=1-1

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0452011876/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203039712&sr=1-1

And no, I am NOT a Ron Paul whackjob.

According to the editorial review, "Weaving an epic of complex dimensions, Brin ( Startide Rising ) plaits initially divergent story lines, all set in the year 2038."

Please. In 2038, black holes eating away at the earth will be the least of our concerns.

Are you serious? Well, you could start with the X-Wing Series, and move on to the bazillion other officially-sanctioned books written about the time after Ep6. The New Jedi Order series is also very good, and ought to keep you busy for a while. Oh, you were looking for something written by Lucas himself? Then you're in luck, because these are much better.

I personally can't stand those little thumb joysticks.

Why? Because they have no precision. Your thumb is very poor at making small changes, especially when targeting someone. Try playing Unreal Tournament for instance on a console and then with a mouse. Your thumb also doesn't move in all directions as easily, so there's another problem.

There's a reason all of the serious online gamers use PCs - a console controller won't cut it. When the difference between headshotting someone is 3-4 pixels in hi-def, well, good luck on a PS3.(note all PC games and monitors are already more than 720P capable unless the programmers sucked) 1280*1024 is considered medium resolution in fact by most PC gamers.

I have dozens of games that require a joystick - a real one. I also have a dedicated steering wheel. They have specific uses that can't be replicated with any other controller. Need for Speed alone is night and day on the console versus a good force feedback wheel with a clutch pedal and shifter. Yes, there are two wheels that have an optional clutch pedal.

You also can't possibly play a game like Mechwarrior or X3 without one. Not unless you want to die over and over again. There's a reason why fighter planes use them and it's also why even 50 years from now, there still will be games that require them.

I personally hate articles like this. Maybe to the author it seems like they are outdated technology, but they still exist and there is no substitute for them, just like there isn't a good one for the mouse on your PC. Each serves a specific role that's not going to be served by another device.

A quick search Best Buy turned up 5 models alone. Dead and gone? Hardly.

P.S. I just played Tie Fighter in XP last night for some nostalgia. LucasArts released a patch in 2004 that makes all of the old games work perfectly with XP and 2K. You need the latest versions of the game(X-Wing Trilogy) and a patch, but it all works perfectly.

I got a copy myself so that my son could play the Star Wars titles to get up to speed as it were.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000050I88?tag=thearmchairem-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B000050I88&adid=1KBTT1SXX3J1M796A6WE&
Worth every penny.

http://www.lucasfiles.com/index.php?action=file&id=653

Here's the patch. Technically it will work with the W95 collector's editions, but they aren't as polished and the 3D engine they added to the trilogy edition makes it actually look good - perfectly playable, in fact. 640*480*32bit color with texture mapping. If you never saw the original X-Wing with the rendering engine from Alliance, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Earth http://www.amazon.com/Earth-David-Brin/dp/055329024X

i'll always be fond of maddog, as it was a book he wrote, "Red Hat Linux for Dummies" in 1999 that gave me my first real introduction to Linux. it fostered an intense curiosity into open source software and Linux that remains with me to this day.

I keep seeing this ludicrous "The military has tanks, jet fighters and nuclear weapons so any insurgency is doomed to fail." argument. It demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of guerilla warfare and the history of armed insurrection in the post WW2 era. I highly recommend "The War of the Flea" by Robert Taber.

http://www.amazon.com/War-Flea-Classic-Guerrilla-Warfare/dp/1574885553

This was written in the 1960s, but it's just as relevant today. During the Vietnam war, the United States had tanks, jet fighters, nuclear weapons, heavy artillery, etc. etc. and got their asses handed to them by a rag-tag army with some AK-47s, RPGs and high tech weapons like sharpened sticks and spent 50 caliber shell casings. Since then, we've seen the Russians in Afghanistan, Israelis in Lebanon, and I dare say the United States in Iraq. The evidence is rather overwhelming.

Basically, the only way for the occupying invader to win a guerilla war is to completely decimate the civilian population. In the United States, killing the people that you're trying to subjugate would be absolutely pointless (you actually think the U.S. government would use a nuclear weapon on its own populace?), and would be like dumping gasoline on the fire of rebellion.

Never underestimate a determined combatant fighting on his home soil.

There's a great book called Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box which contains a series of realistic short stories chronicaling a variety of black hat adventures. In one story, the protagonist uses an open printer as a base of operations from which to launch attacks on other boxes in the network. This is especially useful since internal servers may be IP-range limited to prevent direct access from outside machines.

IIRC, the attacker also used it as a gateway to steal and forward packets traveling through the local network hub. Good stuff :)

One would think that the government would encourage energy saving by ensuring cities weren't shining so much light up at the sky where it hardly does any good. I mean, just see Mizon's Light Pollution about not only how it has ruined astronomy, but how it's simply wasteful as well. But I imagine the energy lobby, who continues to fool the public into thinking that the more light street lamps produce the better, maintains its influence.

Funniest SW Book Ever, October 18, 2001
By Handofthrawn "handofthrawn45" (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews

Ah, the sweet smell of space combat and politics mixed with witty banter. While this is by no means the best SW book ever written, it's certainly a very enjoyable read. I've been a big fan of the X-wing series and both Stackpole and Allston. The book starts off on a very nice note: Wedge breaks up with Qwi. Ahh.... Allston must have joined the Stackpole-Zahn pact to rid the world of SW novels from all of the terrible relartionships Anderson thought up in his books.

During the holiday season of 2007, I put a Cowon audio player that plays Vorbis on my wish list. But it turned out that nobody found any brick-and-mortar chain in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that carries Cowon or iRiver products. How should I avoid this situation in the future?

So, what's wrong with buying online? Amazon sells COWONs at a decent price; we bought our A2 there.

BTW, the A3 is a pretty remarkable piece of hardware with support for H.264 and Matroska and automatic rescaling of 720p videos to fit the small screen.

I fail to see what relevance this has to the discussion of hardware support for Linux, though, not to mention its relevance to the question of Samsung's Blu-Ray player.

Funny, Pynchon in his Gravity's Rainbow frequently made the point that the V-2 was an especially inhumane weapon because, falling faster than the speed of sound, it killed you before you even knew it was coming.

Yes, that is the principle on which The Corporation flourishes.

This is why you see lots of big actors and big name directors and talent working on more and more "indie" films.

Even so, many films with big-name actors that are called "independent" are nonetheless closely tied to studios. Remember the buzz over Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , a fresh new film made by a new group of filmmakers outside the mainstream? Well, it came from Focus Features, which despite calling itself an "art house" studio is in fact owned by Universal.

One wonders if the accounting on European films is more honest. European film industries are heavily subsidized by the state, and when you have to report back to the state on what you've done with their funding, perhaps there is less temptation to cook the books.

"In short, Amazon for me represents the most successful of the new online retailers; they have won my trust and admiration, no easy feat, and so I find this Slashdot story to be questionable at best."

I'll do you one better: I had signed up for Amazon Prime because of the free shipping spiel. I forgot when the trial period ended, and at the last minute, I panicked and tried to cancel it. For some reason I couldn't, so I wound up with an overdraft in my checking account.

When I called Amazon about it, the very first person I talked to refunded the $79 and my $38 NSF fee, without even asking for proof.

That's service.

The video that they forced off of YouTube can, thanks to Gawker, be found here.

As a non-scientologist, this is scary. Possibly the most scary part of it is the editing. I have no problem with people having convictions but when he talks about "fightin' the fight" and "people needing them" and "people depending on them" ... I get a little frightened that people around me think like that. You may be able to argue that it's little different than Christianity or Islam but what I really fear are the people who are part of Sea Org or offshore from the states and may have given up their rights as a civilian & American to have some sort of special standing in this group.

Whatever the case, I will not ever affiliate myself with a Scientologist and after reading Have You Lived Before This Life, I will do everything in my power to convince those that I know and love to avoid Scientology.

The thing that concerns me about Scientology is that after reading some books by Hubbard about it, I have found very little criticism of it. A book & some articles with the most notable one being Time Magazine. It seems like such an easy target. It takes seconds to find books criticizing Catholics or Muslims ... why are there so few publications attacking Scientology? There is definitely something scary about a very powerful organization and if they have people dumping money into them, I do not doubt they are capable of silencing anyone (unfortunately, even Slashdot).

did you ever come across any philosophers/schools of thought that exemplify the kinds of stances you are developing?

Wow, great question. The short answer is "not exactly".

One place to start would be the British newsweekly The Economist. I've been reading them for ages now, and I'm sure I've soaked up a lot from them.

Aside from being an excellent way to get your news, they believe in free markets not for their own sake, but as a tool to make the world a better place. Some American progressives mistake them as a conservative outfit, but that's wrong. They're economically pretty conservative, and socially very liberal. From an American perspective, that can be confusing. Mainly, they're data-focused pragmatists.

As far as using markets as tools, it's worth checking out the way a lot of greens have come to embrace them. A green pal tells me that they were anathema 15 or 20 years ago, but now they're pretty popular. She recommended Natural Capitalism as a good place to start.

If it's more a question of how capitalism can avoid being evil, take a look at Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. It's a memoir from the founder of Patagonia, and it's an enjoyable and inspiring read. It's the spiritual opposite of the grinchy Randite tone, but the guy is still a smashing success who started from zero, just like their heroes.

Hope that helps!

I would be happy if our legistraitors would at least read the bills before they pass them into law!

irrelevant to this discussion.

Really? Irrelevant? I didn't know that. I thought it made all the difference. But I'll play by your rules for a moment.

given the massive functional improvements to OSes compared to hardware

Your own figures 'showed' that Vista and 3.1 are the "same cost" essentially. But apparently there's been no improvements to hardware, nothing like 386->core 2 duo, no no. We're using the same hardware essentially, and it certainly isn't any cheaper by comparison.

Finally, comparing a Vista Home Premium Upgrade to OS X gives basically the same price

Amazon has Vista Upgrade for ~$200, whereas the Apple Store has Leopard for $130, unless you're smart and get the 4 serial family pack, which is $40 per license. Not basically the same cost. At all.

Both albums were recorded and released after Guthrie stopped performing, so I think you must be remembering incorrectly. It is possible and maybe even likely that Guthrie played with The Weavers, and though there are Weavers live recordings from as early as 1950-1951, he's obviously not on them if his own daughter and the researchers who worked on this restoration could not figure that out.

Sources:
http://www.amrhome.net/contents/sepdsc.txt "The Weavers on Tour (1956-58)" "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall (December, 1955)"

Guthrie stopped performing sometime before 1954 according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie#Deteriorating_health

Also, while indeed the album you're referring to (The Weavers On Tour) is out of print, The Weavers Live at Carnegie Hall is available on CD: http://www.amazon.com/Weavers-at-Carnegie-Hall/dp/B000000EFX. There is a Guthrie-penned song on there, which might be the root of your mis-remembering.

Hire someone that knows what they are doing.

That's the easiest, but likely most costly, way out. But the original question was "how do I teach myself graphical design, particularly in the context of websites?"

To answer that, I would suggest there's a lot of a) reading and b) practice involved. You don't have to go to school to learn web graphic design, but you do have work hard at learning it. But, taking a course will just make it a lot easier. "Art" stuff is harder to just pickup and do, unlike "tech" stuff. This coming from a guy who was going to go to art school but opted for a Computer Science degree while studying CGI and ending up as a web developer.

Here are some books:

Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design

An excellent book that expands on CSS techniques as well as gets into how to visualize site design to best markup your website (without tables per say). Later on it will teach you how to look for inspiration in print media (magazines, newspapers, etc) and how to keep a "diary" of design ideas by cutting and pasting different images into a scrap book. It'll also cover different design aspects such as fixed vs liquid layouts, pixel vs em sizing, and get into CSS3 stuff that's coming down the pike (still) with the Advanced Layout Method. This is a must read, but requires some good CSS knowledge.

Bullet Proof Web Design

This book is less about design and more about how HTML/CSS markup to make your design easier to do without getting into table layouts. It'll make your job easier and might give you some design ideas. And since you cannot have one without the other...

Web Standards Solutions

Another excellent web development book. Like "bulletproof" above, it's a very fast read but worth it's weight in gold. Can you find this stuff on the Intranet? Sure, particularly from A List Apart, who's authers regularly post their articles too, but it's worth having a nice colored book for fast reference.

The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter)

There's a website for this book, The CSS Zen Garden, that you can use and probably pass over this book (I did, but I'm still interested in adding this one to my collection). This will teach you about how HTML and CSS differ and what can be accomplished by good CSS and semantic HTML. It'll probably also get your inspired as there are a ton of gorgeous examples in the book.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

You cannot talk about web site design without taking into consideration Usability and Steve Krug's book is probably the best thing you can read for you and your visitors. He's a nice guy (I've contacted him via email after reading his book and he kindly responded), his book is funny, short, and chalk full of full color graphical examples. You can also read from Nielson's website Useit.com to get more education on usability but there's a good deal of people who feel Nielson's "requirements" can be taken with a grain of salt.

Hire someone that knows what they are doing.

That's the easiest, but likely most costly, way out. But the original question was "how do I teach myself graphical design, particularly in the context of websites?"

To answer that, I would suggest there's a lot of a) reading and b) practice involved. You don't have to go to school to learn web graphic design, but you do have work hard at learning it. But, taking a course will just make it a lot easier. "Art" stuff is harder to just pickup and do, unlike "tech" stuff. This coming from a guy who was going to go to art school but opted for a Computer Science degree while studying CGI and ending up as a web developer.

Here are some books:

Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design

An excellent book that expands on CSS techniques as well as gets into how to visualize site design to best markup your website (without tables per say). Later on it will teach you how to look for inspiration in print media (magazines, newspapers, etc) and how to keep a "diary" of design ideas by cutting and pasting different images into a scrap book. It'll also cover different design aspects such as fixed vs liquid layouts, pixel vs em sizing, and get into CSS3 stuff that's coming down the pike (still) with the Advanced Layout Method. This is a must read, but requires some good CSS knowledge.

Bullet Proof Web Design

This book is less about design and more about how HTML/CSS markup to make your design easier to do without getting into table layouts. It'll make your job easier and might give you some design ideas. And since you cannot have one without the other...

Web Standards Solutions

Another excellent web development book. Like "bulletproof" above, it's a very fast read but worth it's weight in gold. Can you find this stuff on the Intranet? Sure, particularly from A List Apart, who's authers regularly post their articles too, but it's worth having a nice colored book for fast reference.

The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter)

There's a website for this book, The CSS Zen Garden, that you can use and probably pass over this book (I did, but I'm still interested in adding this one to my collection). This will teach you about how HTML and CSS differ and what can be accomplished by good CSS and semantic HTML. It'll probably also get your inspired as there are a ton of gorgeous examples in the book.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

You cannot talk about web site design without taking into consideration Usability and Steve Krug's book is probably the best thing you can read for you and your visitors. He's a nice guy (I've contacted him via email after reading his book and he kindly responded), his book is funny, short, and chalk full of full color graphical examples. You can also read from Nielson's website Useit.com to get more education on usability but there's a good deal of people who feel Nielson's "requirements" can be taken with a grain of salt.

Hire someone that knows what they are doing.

That's the easiest, but likely most costly, way out. But the original question was "how do I teach myself graphical design, particularly in the context of websites?"

To answer that, I would suggest there's a lot of a) reading and b) practice involved. You don't have to go to school to learn web graphic design, but you do have work hard at learning it. But, taking a course will just make it a lot easier. "Art" stuff is harder to just pickup and do, unlike "tech" stuff. This coming from a guy who was going to go to art school but opted for a Computer Science degree while studying CGI and ending up as a web developer.

Here are some books:

Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design

An excellent book that expands on CSS techniques as well as gets into how to visualize site design to best markup your website (without tables per say). Later on it will teach you how to look for inspiration in print media (magazines, newspapers, etc) and how to keep a "diary" of design ideas by cutting and pasting different images into a scrap book. It'll also cover different design aspects such as fixed vs liquid layouts, pixel vs em sizing, and get into CSS3 stuff that's coming down the pike (still) with the Advanced Layout Method. This is a must read, but requires some good CSS knowledge.

Bullet Proof Web Design

This book is less about design and more about how HTML/CSS markup to make your design easier to do without getting into table layouts. It'll make your job easier and might give you some design ideas. And since you cannot have one without the other...

Web Standards Solutions

Another excellent web development book. Like "bulletproof" above, it's a very fast read but worth it's weight in gold. Can you find this stuff on the Intranet? Sure, particularly from A List Apart, who's authers regularly post their articles too, but it's worth having a nice colored book for fast reference.

The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter)

There's a website for this book, The CSS Zen Garden, that you can use and probably pass over this book (I did, but I'm still interested in adding this one to my collection). This will teach you about how HTML and CSS differ and what can be accomplished by good CSS and semantic HTML. It'll probably also get your inspired as there are a ton of gorgeous examples in the book.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

You cannot talk about web site design without taking into consideration Usability and Steve Krug's book is probably the best thing you can read for you and your visitors. He's a nice guy (I've contacted him via email after reading his book and he kindly responded), his book is funny, short, and chalk full of full color graphical examples. You can also read from Nielson's website Useit.com to get more education on usability but there's a good deal of people who feel Nielson's "requirements" can be taken with a grain of salt.

Hire someone that knows what they are doing.

That's the easiest, but likely most costly, way out. But the original question was "how do I teach myself graphical design, particularly in the context of websites?"

To answer that, I would suggest there's a lot of a) reading and b) practice involved. You don't have to go to school to learn web graphic design, but you do have work hard at learning it. But, taking a course will just make it a lot easier. "Art" stuff is harder to just pickup and do, unlike "tech" stuff. This coming from a guy who was going to go to art school but opted for a Computer Science degree while studying CGI and ending up as a web developer.

Here are some books:

Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design

An excellent book that expands on CSS techniques as well as gets into how to visualize site design to best markup your website (without tables per say). Later on it will teach you how to look for inspiration in print media (magazines, newspapers, etc) and how to keep a "diary" of design ideas by cutting and pasting different images into a scrap book. It'll also cover different design aspects such as fixed vs liquid layouts, pixel vs em sizing, and get into CSS3 stuff that's coming down the pike (still) with the Advanced Layout Method. This is a must read, but requires some good CSS knowledge.

Bullet Proof Web Design

This book is less about design and more about how HTML/CSS markup to make your design easier to do without getting into table layouts. It'll make your job easier and might give you some design ideas. And since you cannot have one without the other...

Web Standards Solutions

Another excellent web development book. Like "bulletproof" above, it's a very fast read but worth it's weight in gold. Can you find this stuff on the Intranet? Sure, particularly from A List Apart, who's authers regularly post their articles too, but it's worth having a nice colored book for fast reference.

The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter)

There's a website for this book, The CSS Zen Garden, that you can use and probably pass over this book (I did, but I'm still interested in adding this one to my collection). This will teach you about how HTML and CSS differ and what can be accomplished by good CSS and semantic HTML. It'll probably also get your inspired as there are a ton of gorgeous examples in the book.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

You cannot talk about web site design without taking into consideration Usability and Steve Krug's book is probably the best thing you can read for you and your visitors. He's a nice guy (I've contacted him via email after reading his book and he kindly responded), his book is funny, short, and chalk full of full color graphical examples. You can also read from Nielson's website Useit.com to get more education on usability but there's a good deal of people who feel Nielson's "requirements" can be taken with a grain of salt.

Hire someone that knows what they are doing.

That's the easiest, but likely most costly, way out. But the original question was "how do I teach myself graphical design, particularly in the context of websites?"

To answer that, I would suggest there's a lot of a) reading and b) practice involved. You don't have to go to school to learn web graphic design, but you do have work hard at learning it. But, taking a course will just make it a lot easier. "Art" stuff is harder to just pickup and do, unlike "tech" stuff. This coming from a guy who was going to go to art school but opted for a Computer Science degree while studying CGI and ending up as a web developer.

Here are some books:

Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design

An excellent book that expands on CSS techniques as well as gets into how to visualize site design to best markup your website (without tables per say). Later on it will teach you how to look for inspiration in print media (magazines, newspapers, etc) and how to keep a "diary" of design ideas by cutting and pasting different images into a scrap book. It'll also cover different design aspects such as fixed vs liquid layouts, pixel vs em sizing, and get into CSS3 stuff that's coming down the pike (still) with the Advanced Layout Method. This is a must read, but requires some good CSS knowledge.

Bullet Proof Web Design

This book is less about design and more about how HTML/CSS markup to make your design easier to do without getting into table layouts. It'll make your job easier and might give you some design ideas. And since you cannot have one without the other...

Web Standards Solutions

Another excellent web development book. Like "bulletproof" above, it's a very fast read but worth it's weight in gold. Can you find this stuff on the Intranet? Sure, particularly from A List Apart, who's authers regularly post their articles too, but it's worth having a nice colored book for fast reference.

The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter)

There's a website for this book, The CSS Zen Garden, that you can use and probably pass over this book (I did, but I'm still interested in adding this one to my collection). This will teach you about how HTML and CSS differ and what can be accomplished by good CSS and semantic HTML. It'll probably also get your inspired as there are a ton of gorgeous examples in the book.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

You cannot talk about web site design without taking into consideration Usability and Steve Krug's book is probably the best thing you can read for you and your visitors. He's a nice guy (I've contacted him via email after reading his book and he kindly responded), his book is funny, short, and chalk full of full color graphical examples. You can also read from Nielson's website Useit.com to get more education on usability but there's a good deal of people who feel Nielson's "requirements" can be taken with a grain of salt.

This is a fantastic book on the subject, and required reading for anyone working in IT. Or with IT. It covers a lot of issues faced on daily basis.

IT Ethics Handbook by Stephen Northcutt

A rather large white rabbit would agree with you.*

*A rather fun read actually.

For me, the book that did it was
The Non-Designer's Design Book, by Robin Williams. It provides explanations of the core concepts taught in graphic design courses: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity, with lots of comparative examples before-and-after applying those basic rules. It also has a whole section about how using type fonts effectively.

She also has a "Non-designers web book", but it centers too much in the basics about web technology and has less deepness about the real payoff, the principles of good design.

This is the best book out there to help you making something decent:

"Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability" by Steve Krug
http://www.amazon.com/Common-Approach-Usability-Circle-Com-Library/dp/0789723107

Hiring a designer is no guarantee that the resulting website will be accessible to those with disabilities. In fact some otherwise eye-catching designs are totally inaccessible. So whether you build or buy, you need to build web accessibility into the spec.

Two useful references from experts in the field are:

Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance (Paperback, by Thatcher, et al.
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Accessibility-Standards-Regulatory-Compliance/dp/1590596382/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202686041&sr=1-1

Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Web Site More Usable for Everyone (Paperback), by Slatin & Rush
http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Accessibility-Making-Usable-Everyone/dp/0201774224/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202686041&sr=1-4

Good luck

Hiring a designer is no guarantee that the resulting website will be accessible to those with disabilities. In fact some otherwise eye-catching designs are totally inaccessible. So whether you build or buy, you need to build web accessibility into the spec.

Two useful references from experts in the field are:

Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance (Paperback, by Thatcher, et al.
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Accessibility-Standards-Regulatory-Compliance/dp/1590596382/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202686041&sr=1-1

Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Web Site More Usable for Everyone (Paperback), by Slatin & Rush
http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Accessibility-Making-Usable-Everyone/dp/0201774224/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202686041&sr=1-4

Good luck

by Donald Norman. If you're not trained as a designer and are being asked to design, this book is the most important thing you can read. In it is nothing about how to make things pretty, and everything about how to make things usable by humans.

Heck, even if you are a designer that was trained in the art of making things pretty but not really the art of making things usable by humans, you need to read this book. There are certainly enough of those in this industry.

I looks like they're trying to make up the difference for any losses they had on that before they caught their mistake through their pricing on SD/CF Adapters.

1. The Non-designers Design Book (and similar books by Robin Williams on Web Design and Typography).
2. 101 Things I learned in Architectural School

1. The Non-designers Design Book (and similar books by Robin Williams on Web Design and Typography).
2. 101 Things I learned in Architectural School

1. The Non-designers Design Book (and similar books by Robin Williams on Web Design and Typography).
2. 101 Things I learned in Architectural School

Add rounded corners, drop shadows, glassy reflections and gradients everywhere - and you're done!

Seriously,

Tons of good gallery sites, visit them. Use Adobe's Kuler. Finally, read this basic book: The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams.

And like someone else said - a boring site is better than an ugly one. So don't try to be a hero.

Besides showing us how to recognize alien life, wouldn't a better understanding of extreme creatures help us decide which species to first release in a terraforming effort? In Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars , Sax Russell's choice of initial seedings is inspired by an earlier sojourn in Antarctica.

This choice is really up to you on how much time you have to spend on this. The website and book recommendations in the previous comments are great as is the recommendation of using a Content Management System (CMS) such as Joomla!, Drupal, etc. Another book I would recommend is Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-839-9 and ISBN-10: 1-59059-839-3. This is a great book which talks about what needs to be in a business website, how to market it, 508 compliance, using CMS software and templates, and many other topics. BTW, don't buy the hype of "IT can't do graphics design and vice versa" as it is usually not true. However, these are not skills you can do well overnight. Just like any other profession, it takes time to get good then great at it.

My end analysis would be to get a good CMS (most are 508 and standards compliant and allow the user to manage their own content and most of the good ones are free) with a good template (which you may or may not have to pay for as a lot of the free templates out there are very nice) or hire out the redesign (because that sounds like what your boss is asking for) to a web design company (keeping in mind that not all DESIGN companies are WEB DESIGN companies although more and more are coming around every day).

Hope this helps.

You may find Th e Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird helpful. It's essentially a primer in basic graphic design intended for people exactly like you. Here's the paragraph from the introduction entitled "Who Should Read this Book?":

If you are squeamish about choosing colors, feel uninspired by a blank browser window, or get lost trying to choose the right font, this book is for you. In it, I take a methodical approach to presenting traditional graphic design theory as it applies to today's web site development industry. While the content is directed towards programmers and developers, it provides a design primer that will benefit readers at any level.

The table of contents in brief:

1. Layout and Composition
2. Color
3. Texture
4. Typography
5. Imagery

The text is reasonably friendly, and has lots of illustrations to demonstrate what the author discusses. It won't turn you into a graphic design guru, but it will probably help you figure out where to start. In general, a good book. My one real criticism is that in his discussion of legitimate sources of images, the author doesn't discuss public domain or the Creative Commons, only doing it yourself, royalty-free (but copyrighted) images, hiring professionals, and obtaining rights-managed images.

Another good book, not specifically about web design but a mainstay of introductory design classes, is The Non-Designer's Design Book. In the second edition, it covered:

1. Proximity
2. Alignment
3. Repetition
4. Contrast
5. Four chapters on typography

Note that I have linked to the third edition, which is scheduled for release later this month and may cover slightly different things. I don't know how much or even if it's been updated.

The same author puts out a book entitled "The Non-Designer's Web Book". I do not think that this book will be as helpful to you. It covers a lot of very basic material about building web sites (some basic HTML, acceptable image formats, and so on), and it sounds like you've already got that part of it.

Hope this helps.

You may find Th e Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird helpful. It's essentially a primer in basic graphic design intended for people exactly like you. Here's the paragraph from the introduction entitled "Who Should Read this Book?":

If you are squeamish about choosing colors, feel uninspired by a blank browser window, or get lost trying to choose the right font, this book is for you. In it, I take a methodical approach to presenting traditional graphic design theory as it applies to today's web site development industry. While the content is directed towards programmers and developers, it provides a design primer that will benefit readers at any level.

The table of contents in brief:

1. Layout and Composition
2. Color
3. Texture
4. Typography
5. Imagery

The text is reasonably friendly, and has lots of illustrations to demonstrate what the author discusses. It won't turn you into a graphic design guru, but it will probably help you figure out where to start. In general, a good book. My one real criticism is that in his discussion of legitimate sources of images, the author doesn't discuss public domain or the Creative Commons, only doing it yourself, royalty-free (but copyrighted) images, hiring professionals, and obtaining rights-managed images.

Another good book, not specifically about web design but a mainstay of introductory design classes, is The Non-Designer's Design Book. In the second edition, it covered:

1. Proximity
2. Alignment
3. Repetition
4. Contrast
5. Four chapters on typography

Note that I have linked to the third edition, which is scheduled for release later this month and may cover slightly different things. I don't know how much or even if it's been updated.

The same author puts out a book entitled "The Non-Designer's Web Book". I do not think that this book will be as helpful to you. It covers a lot of very basic material about building web sites (some basic HTML, acceptable image formats, and so on), and it sounds like you've already got that part of it.

Hope this helps.